I was very tempted to pick Otamendi but he is pretty much a liability here
Modern Draft
- Thread starter Indnyc
- Start date
Same.
I thought Moutinho was a certainty to get picked. Brilliant player, and his recent form in the PL means that he's on the collective radar at the minute.
The other one was Mario Gomez. Excellent goalscoring record at his peak, although his style of play mightn't mesh with certain teams here.
I did consider Moutinho.. The league restriction stopped me.. Probably should have picked him
League restrictions for Moutinho.
I’ll be away til Wednesday night, so Thursday?
Yeah. Both were high-ish on my list, but went elsewhere based on what was available, getting CMs early doors and Dzeko’s big-game record trumping the others available. Had planned Gomez as a sub to create league capacity but hey-ho.
Ok ! I know understand some choices
Brahimi and Krychowiak are odd omissions given the fact they are both in turd leagues.
How is he rated? Seems that he has had injury issues?
Thursday then
Sokratis ahould be taken.
dont know but his Sevilla version should be rated higher then a few picked ones.
Used him as a barge pole to entertain the opposition in an all time draft before, since the opposition had Baresi.
Was rated as such.
SMS, Weigl also could've been picked I guess, also Kurzawa is a pretty good and versatile option.
The EPL quota would always going to be tough so I'm not surprised at Moutinho's omission.
Could do with someone making me a formation if possible. Share my tactics seems to have something against me.
Check your inbox.
I wasn’t sure.. He and Nzonzi would probably make a decent double pivot
Sent. Start whenever ready.
I have both.. I’ll start tomorrow morning
i am the new @Edgar Allan Pillow.
You can dress like me;
walk, talk and act like me
And just might be the next best thing,
.... but not quite me!
Wow. No one picked Payet? I am shocked.
Wow. No one picked Payet? I am shocked.
Top player that. Much better than some of the EPL players picked.
The other two attackers I expected to be picked were Mandzukic and Jesus Navas.
Cool. I'm up for the day so whenever 2mufc is up we can start.
Let's do it on Thursday
Max Kruse profile – the greatest German striker of his generation
Germany has had a long list of great number 9s including Seeler, Muller, Fischer, Klinsmann and Klose. The newest talent hopeful to enter the list is Timo Werner, yet there has been a huge gap between Klose (born 1978) and Werner (born 1996). Mario Gomez played some tournaments to various degree of success, yet the one striker who was fit to lace the boots of Klose, Klinsmann and all the other greats has been left out almost entirely, to the point where he is little known outside of Germany. Max Kruse has been one of the best strikers in Bundesliga for years, but he never played a big part for Germany. Why did he fail to have a long national team career while Germany had no striker? How is this guy supposed to be any good when most have never heard of him before and when he has not even won a single title in his life?
I’ll try to answer these questions as good as possible; I want to start with describing what kind of player Kruse is and explain later why you both can and cannot judge him on his goal stats. At the end I will present you some gossip about why Kruse is hated by Joachim Low, so keep reading
Max Kruse – playing style
Kruse nominally plays as a number 9, yet he never plays as a poacher. With 180cm tall, he is neither very athletic like your typical big CF nor small and nimble like Messi or Aguero. He lacks athleticism and his critics often call him “a bit fat”. That is not wrong, it just doesn’t affect his success on the pitch. His “superior upper body strength” allows him to have a very good hold-up play, despite being weaker and smaller than most centrebacks. His technique is not perfect, but pretty good and without any obvious weaknesses. What he is really good at is movement, he knows instinctively where to position himself to create chances, confuse the centrebacks and influence the play from deep and out wide. His passing and link-up play is very consistent and creative while his shooting technique is outstanding, both from the inside and the outside of the box.
This is a good video to highlight the diversity in his finishing and the way how he finds solutions when the chance seems to be killed off.
Talismanic importance as a false 9
All in all, he is a very complete CF without a natural poaching instinct. I would therefore compare him to players like Firmino or Benzema. These two are playing with some of the best players in the world, while Kruse played in some very poor Bundesliga sides. The burden of scoring and playmaking is much higher when you have Fin Bartels or Jan Rosenthal next to you instead of Ronaldo, Salah or Coutinho. Kruse adapted to this demand at a very young age and used his skills to move all over the pitch and make plays, leading to the managers using him as a false 9. In this role, he has a talismanic importance for his sides. When he performs, everyone plays better and without him, the side looks lost and without any chance of scoring. He has been a part of some very good partnerships over the years, several players looked like world beaters next to him and did very little afterwards. The Kruse effect can be seen when you look at how his clubs did when he left them:
Freiburg with Kruse: 5th place (13’)
Freiburg after Kruse left: 14th place (14’)
Gladbach with Kruse: 6th (14’) and 3rd (15’)
Gladbach after Kruse: Favre resigns after 5 losses in 5 games (start of 15/16)
Wolfsburg with Kruse: 8th place (16’)
Wolfsburg after Kruse: 16th place (17’)
In 2016, he left Wolfsburg for Bremen and they are extremely reliant on his presence to get any kind of results. He usually starts every game when he is fit, but he missed 18 matches due to injury in his 2 seasons there and Bremen only managed 3 wins while he was injured.
Things have been particularly bad in November 2017, where Kruse was injured at the start of the season and Bremen had 0 wins after 11 matches. They appointed Kohlfeldt as their new manager, Kruse came back from injury and they turned it around with 9 wins in the next 17 games.
This is match day 12 of 2017/18, the turnaround to save Werder’s season after zero wins and 17th place after 11 matches. Kruse assists the first goal and scores the next 3. You can fast forward to 2:00 mins
This season, Kruse has played every match and Werder are looking as strong as ever. They are sitting in 4th place, above Bayern Munich in the table and they have a good chance of reaching the European spots again.
Can he be a great striker without ever hitting the 20 goal mark?
First of all, I already stated that he usually plays as a playmaking false 9, not as a traditional CF. In some seasons (mainly Wolfsburg and St. Pauli), he even played as a number 10 behind a true striker. Secondly, his goal stats in the league are very much in line with what comparable players like Firmino or Benzema have to offer despite playing in much worse teams, and his assist numbers are very important to determine his impact. Let’s have a look at his numbers:
12/13: 22 scorer (12 goals 10 assists)
13/14: 23 scorer (12 goals 11 assists)
14/15: 24 scorer (13 goals 11 assists)
15/16: 21 scorer (9 goals 12 assists)
16/17: 22 scorer (15 goals 7 assists)
17/18: 17 scorer (8 goals 9 assists)
His worst season has easily been 2015/2016, where he made a poor career choice by going to Wolfsburg. He met a side past its peak which fell apart quickly, yet he still managed to impact the season with contributing to 21 goals directly. The numbers show that he is not a goal machine, but they also show his incredible consistency in delivering goals and results for some very average sides, season after season.
Why no NT career then?
He has been called up to the NT for the first time in 2013 and took part in 14 matches in total. He was mostly a substitute in his limited game time, 498 minutes are less than 6 full matches. In these 498 minutes, he had 4 goals and 7 assists, one scorer every 45 minutes. His short performances for the NT have easily been good enough to warrant more call-ups, but somewhere along the ride, he was blacklisted by the German FA and should go on to never play again for the NT. The reason is that the German FA / Jogi Low / the German public see him as a human being who shouldn’t represent Germany.
Max Kruse - enemy of the public
In Germany there is a presumption about how a German NT player should behave himself, how he should live his life and how he should engage with the media. Max Kruse is not your typical modern Fortnite-playing footballer, he spends his free time with being a “professional poker player”. “Professional poker player” means 3rd place at the world championship 2014 in Las Vegas in No Limit 2-7 Drawe Lowball. He has appeared on big poker celebrity events on national television and is a frequent player at various big professional poker events. In October 2015, he lost 75,000 € cash in a taxi in Berlin after he played at the World Series and wanted to get home at 6 am in the morning. He has been heavily criticized by his club and the media for this incident, by writing stuff like “unprofessional behaviour” and “bad role modelling”. He has been painted as an irresponsible human being and there have been other incidents named by the mainstream media (Bild, Süddeutsche, Spiegel, Stern, Focus etc., they all despise him). The following incidents have all been used by the media to discredit him (and are most certainly true):
The taxi cash “scandal” became public in March 2016, one week later he was at a club in Berlin and photographed by a female Bild journalist without his permission. He was furious, snatched her phone and deleted all the pictures. After this incident, Low threw him out of the national team for good.
There is another incident which hasn’t been widely reported by newspapers because it is NSFW, but let’s just say rumour has it that Kruse did some sexting with a bird, she got angry and sent an explicit video to several other Bundesliga players she knew. Some say this incident has been the real reason why Low has thrown him out of the NT, but we will never know the truth.
Germany has had a long list of great number 9s including Seeler, Muller, Fischer, Klinsmann and Klose. The newest talent hopeful to enter the list is Timo Werner, yet there has been a huge gap between Klose (born 1978) and Werner (born 1996). Mario Gomez played some tournaments to various degree of success, yet the one striker who was fit to lace the boots of Klose, Klinsmann and all the other greats has been left out almost entirely, to the point where he is little known outside of Germany. Max Kruse has been one of the best strikers in Bundesliga for years, but he never played a big part for Germany. Why did he fail to have a long national team career while Germany had no striker? How is this guy supposed to be any good when most have never heard of him before and when he has not even won a single title in his life?
I’ll try to answer these questions as good as possible; I want to start with describing what kind of player Kruse is and explain later why you both can and cannot judge him on his goal stats. At the end I will present you some gossip about why Kruse is hated by Joachim Low, so keep reading
Max Kruse – playing style
Kruse nominally plays as a number 9, yet he never plays as a poacher. With 180cm tall, he is neither very athletic like your typical big CF nor small and nimble like Messi or Aguero. He lacks athleticism and his critics often call him “a bit fat”. That is not wrong, it just doesn’t affect his success on the pitch. His “superior upper body strength” allows him to have a very good hold-up play, despite being weaker and smaller than most centrebacks. His technique is not perfect, but pretty good and without any obvious weaknesses. What he is really good at is movement, he knows instinctively where to position himself to create chances, confuse the centrebacks and influence the play from deep and out wide. His passing and link-up play is very consistent and creative while his shooting technique is outstanding, both from the inside and the outside of the box.
This is a good video to highlight the diversity in his finishing and the way how he finds solutions when the chance seems to be killed off.
Talismanic importance as a false 9
All in all, he is a very complete CF without a natural poaching instinct. I would therefore compare him to players like Firmino or Benzema. These two are playing with some of the best players in the world, while Kruse played in some very poor Bundesliga sides. The burden of scoring and playmaking is much higher when you have Fin Bartels or Jan Rosenthal next to you instead of Ronaldo, Salah or Coutinho. Kruse adapted to this demand at a very young age and used his skills to move all over the pitch and make plays, leading to the managers using him as a false 9. In this role, he has a talismanic importance for his sides. When he performs, everyone plays better and without him, the side looks lost and without any chance of scoring. He has been a part of some very good partnerships over the years, several players looked like world beaters next to him and did very little afterwards. The Kruse effect can be seen when you look at how his clubs did when he left them:
Freiburg with Kruse: 5th place (13’)
Freiburg after Kruse left: 14th place (14’)
Gladbach with Kruse: 6th (14’) and 3rd (15’)
Gladbach after Kruse: Favre resigns after 5 losses in 5 games (start of 15/16)
Wolfsburg with Kruse: 8th place (16’)
Wolfsburg after Kruse: 16th place (17’)
In 2016, he left Wolfsburg for Bremen and they are extremely reliant on his presence to get any kind of results. He usually starts every game when he is fit, but he missed 18 matches due to injury in his 2 seasons there and Bremen only managed 3 wins while he was injured.
Things have been particularly bad in November 2017, where Kruse was injured at the start of the season and Bremen had 0 wins after 11 matches. They appointed Kohlfeldt as their new manager, Kruse came back from injury and they turned it around with 9 wins in the next 17 games.
This is match day 12 of 2017/18, the turnaround to save Werder’s season after zero wins and 17th place after 11 matches. Kruse assists the first goal and scores the next 3. You can fast forward to 2:00 mins
This season, Kruse has played every match and Werder are looking as strong as ever. They are sitting in 4th place, above Bayern Munich in the table and they have a good chance of reaching the European spots again.
Can he be a great striker without ever hitting the 20 goal mark?
First of all, I already stated that he usually plays as a playmaking false 9, not as a traditional CF. In some seasons (mainly Wolfsburg and St. Pauli), he even played as a number 10 behind a true striker. Secondly, his goal stats in the league are very much in line with what comparable players like Firmino or Benzema have to offer despite playing in much worse teams, and his assist numbers are very important to determine his impact. Let’s have a look at his numbers:
12/13: 22 scorer (12 goals 10 assists)
13/14: 23 scorer (12 goals 11 assists)
14/15: 24 scorer (13 goals 11 assists)
15/16: 21 scorer (9 goals 12 assists)
16/17: 22 scorer (15 goals 7 assists)
17/18: 17 scorer (8 goals 9 assists)
His worst season has easily been 2015/2016, where he made a poor career choice by going to Wolfsburg. He met a side past its peak which fell apart quickly, yet he still managed to impact the season with contributing to 21 goals directly. The numbers show that he is not a goal machine, but they also show his incredible consistency in delivering goals and results for some very average sides, season after season.
Why no NT career then?
He has been called up to the NT for the first time in 2013 and took part in 14 matches in total. He was mostly a substitute in his limited game time, 498 minutes are less than 6 full matches. In these 498 minutes, he had 4 goals and 7 assists, one scorer every 45 minutes. His short performances for the NT have easily been good enough to warrant more call-ups, but somewhere along the ride, he was blacklisted by the German FA and should go on to never play again for the NT. The reason is that the German FA / Jogi Low / the German public see him as a human being who shouldn’t represent Germany.
Max Kruse - enemy of the public
In Germany there is a presumption about how a German NT player should behave himself, how he should live his life and how he should engage with the media. Max Kruse is not your typical modern Fortnite-playing footballer, he spends his free time with being a “professional poker player”. “Professional poker player” means 3rd place at the world championship 2014 in Las Vegas in No Limit 2-7 Drawe Lowball. He has appeared on big poker celebrity events on national television and is a frequent player at various big professional poker events. In October 2015, he lost 75,000 € cash in a taxi in Berlin after he played at the World Series and wanted to get home at 6 am in the morning. He has been heavily criticized by his club and the media for this incident, by writing stuff like “unprofessional behaviour” and “bad role modelling”. He has been painted as an irresponsible human being and there have been other incidents named by the mainstream media (Bild, Süddeutsche, Spiegel, Stern, Focus etc., they all despise him). The following incidents have all been used by the media to discredit him (and are most certainly true
):- Losing 75,000 in cash in a Taxi in Berlin
- Having sex with a candidate of “The Bachelor” (she has been a stalker of Gladbach, allegedly)
- Getting shouted at by his bosses at Wolfsburg because he eats too much Nutella
- Having sex at the national team hotel in 2014 before the world cup and getting thrown out of the squad because of that
- Rapping about sex with prostitutes as “MC Max”
The taxi cash “scandal” became public in March 2016, one week later he was at a club in Berlin and photographed by a female Bild journalist without his permission. He was furious, snatched her phone and deleted all the pictures. After this incident, Low threw him out of the national team for good.
There is another incident which hasn’t been widely reported by newspapers because it is NSFW, but let’s just say rumour has it that Kruse did some sexting with a bird, she got angry and sent an explicit video to several other Bundesliga players she knew. Some say this incident has been the real reason why Low has thrown him out of the NT, but we will never know the truth.
"Getting shouted at by his bosses at Wolfsburg because he eats too much Nutella"
I remember that one
I remember that one
Good stuff @Don Alfredo
- Willhse456 Vs. Beam/Sjor
- Don Alfredo Vs. P-Nut - Thursday, 11th
- Moby Vs.2Mufc0 - Monday, 8th
- Enigma_87 Vs.Edgar - Wednesday, 10th
- Big Dunk Vs. Isotope - Thursday, 11th
- Michaelf7777777 Vs. The Cat
- Indnyc Vs. Gio - Wednesday, 10th
- MJJ Vs. Skizzo
Let's do it on Thursday
Already 2 matches on Thursday as I can see. If I'm not mistaken usually there are no more than 2 matches per day @Indnyc?
We can go tomorrow or Friday if that's the case.
Yeah would avoid 3 matches on a day
@Michaelf7777777 and @The Cat please schedule your match as soon as possible
I have already said that any time after Wednesday suits me best but I am waiting to hear a response from @The Cat
Ok, let's do Friday.
- Willhse456 Vs. Beam/Sjor - Friday, 12th
- Don Alfredo Vs. P-Nut - Thursday, 11th
- Moby Vs.2Mufc0 - Monday, 8th
- Enigma_87 Vs.Edgar - Wednesday, 10th
- Big Dunk Vs. Isotope - Thursday, 11th
- Michaelf7777777 Vs. The Cat
- Indnyc Vs. Gio - Wednesday, 10th
- MJJ Vs. Skizzo
Friday ok? @Michaelf7777777
I won't be around much during any day so I'll have to leave most of it to the writeup anyway.
Friday is fine for me
- Willhse456 Vs. Beam/Sjor - Friday, 12th
- Don Alfredo Vs. P-Nut - Thursday, 11th
- Moby Vs.2Mufc0 - Monday, 8th
- Enigma_87 Vs.Edgar - Wednesday, 10th
- Big Dunk Vs. Isotope - Thursday, 11th
- Michaelf7777777 Vs. The Cat - Friday, 12th
- Indnyc Vs. Gio - Wednesday, 10th
- MJJ Vs. Skizzo - Tuesday, 9th